The following interview is a conversation we had with Matt Watson, CEO and Founder of Origin, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: Over $70 Million Raised to Make Financial Wellness the Next Big Employee Perk

Matt Watson
Yeah, it’s awesome to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Brett
Not a problem. So, to kick things off, can we just start with a quick summary of who you are and a bit more about your background? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I’m currently the CEO at Origin. We’re reimagining financial wellness at work, wealth management. For the vast majority of Americans, all wealth creation starts with their paycheck and we’re trying to make that an amazing experience. This is my second venture back company, so I’ve been doing this for way too long now. I started my entrepreneurial story when I think I was twelve years old. Both my parents are small business owners and they just instilled that in me and my sisters from a very young age. So started with the snow shoveling business when I think I was twelve or 13. And then I grew up as a competitive swimmer and actually started a swim coaching business before I went to college. And then from there I moved into traditional financial services after school. 

Matt Watson
So I worked a corporate role at Citigroup and their bond trading division. And as I was doing that, I just started hearing more and more about Silicon Valley. I grew up on the east coast and tech was not a huge thing when I was growing up on the east coast, but there was this constant buz of these amazing businesses being built in the San Francisco Bay area. So I ended up quitting my job in traditional finance. And in 2015 I moved out to the bay and got to work starting my first business, which were fortunate enough to build and sell. And now I’m working on Origin and it’s been a blast. 

Brett
And it looks like that first company was Indio. Can you tell us more about what Indio did? 

Matt Watson
Yeah. So Indio is a B2B SaaS company. We fall into the category of vertical SaaS. So build a solution for a very specific buyer for a very specific reason. So we sold a workflow management platform to commercial insurance agents. So when a commercial insurance agent is working with their clients, they have many of them, they have tons of data they need to collect, they have to collect payment, they have to get that out to carriers. We put that into a very easy to use system and had a lot of success with that. 

Brett
Were you happy with the outcome of that exit? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, it was a significant exit. We returned over 100 times initial capital to our early investors. So it was an outcome that I think was beyond what we had imagined when we started the business. So you feel very fortunate to have been a Founder of that company and to ultimately bring it to that outcome. 

Brett
I’m sure you learned a ton from that experience. If we had to choose one big thing that you learned, and you took and applied to the company that you’re running today, what would that be? 

Matt Watson
Keep going. Yeah. I think that so much of startups are a game of mental fortitude, and it’s really this function of how mentally resilient can you be while maintaining the energy that you have on day one when you start the business. And I think one thing that is certain in a startup is that you will have probably more tough days than easy days. And I think this is something I learned from my Co-Founder, Mike Furlong, when were running the business. He had started another company before that was if you just stay consistent, listen to your customer, and keep building, good things happen. And I believe that to be true for all people at early stage startups. 

Brett
I see you were also the COo there at Indio, then obviously your CEO today. What’s been the biggest difference as you’ve made that shift into a different role? 

Matt Watson
They’re very similar experience. I think at Indio is more operationally focused. Did a lot of sales there early as well. So honestly, there hasn’t been so much of a change for me in those two roles. I think if you’re at an early company, and this would be what I say to all of our early employees, you need that level of unbrivled ownership and kind of get shit done mentality. And so I think a lot of the people at my company today who are in a variety of roles have a very entrepreneurial position. And so I really don’t know that there’s been a ton of difference between those two experiences, and a couple of. 

Brett
Other questions we’d like to ask. And the goal here is really just to better understand what makes you tick as a Founder. First one, what Founder do you admire the most, and what do you admire about them? 

Matt Watson
So I’ll give you, like, an off the run answer to that question. Question. So I read this book called Endurance, which is about Ernest Shackleton’s expedition across Antarctica in, like, 1915 or 1920, something around there. And it was really interesting. I was reading this book, which was supposed to be about this adventure, and it really dawned on me that this guy was like an OG entrepreneur. So back in the turn of the 20th century, if you wanted to go and do one of these trips, you had to go fundraise. You’d go to a government in Europe and say, hey, I’m going to go do this thing. Will you fund it? And we’ll effectively claim whatever we’re doing in your name. And so he did that. 

Matt Watson
He raised the money, he took the trip, and ultimately, with 25 guys, the boat got stuck in ice, like, very early in the trip. And the story is about his journey over two years, ultimately getting all 25 guys back home without losing anybody, and how we managed that process from start to finish and kept people sane, happy, engaged in the process of survival. And so I really think that should be mandatory reading for anyone starting a company, because it’s amazing what you can do if you’re willing to just keep going and stay positive. And it’s a fun story because there’s so many corollaries to starting a business in terms of fundraising. 

Matt Watson
And then the outcome at that point in time was you would come back and you didn’t exit your business, but you got to tell this story of the journey that you went on. And so that’s a fun one for me. I think it’s a good lesson on the business side of things. 

Brett
Yeah, that’s one of my all time favorite books as well. I read that and then, like, a week later, they discovered the ship. I think that was, like, two years ago or something like that. That’s even more exciting. 

Matt Watson
It’s, like, pretty well preserved because the water is so cold down there. Like, there’s no bacteria or anything. Really cool. 

Brett
Yeah, for sure. I was telling a friend that I really enjoyed that book, and they asked me if I had read river of doubt. And then I just recently read that. Have you read river of doubt? 

Matt Watson
Oh, sounds like I need to. 

Brett
Oh, you have to read it. So it’s about Teddy Roosevelt. Like, after he had lost his second bid for the presidential seat, he went and did this gnarly adventure in the Amazon, like, down the river that no one had ever explored before. And there’s all this crazy stuff that happens, but it’s very similar to endurance. If you liked endurance, I’m sure you’re going to love this one as well. 

Matt Watson
All right, nice. Check that out. 

Brett
Doing research as well, I saw that there’s another Founder in your family, so I believe you have a wife who’s a Founder. What’s that like being married to another Founder and just having that dynamic where there’s two entrepreneurs and two founders in one household? 

Matt Watson
It’s a good question. Obviously, a lot of startup talk in our house, and she operates in a very similar industry to me. So many shared learnings on the journey. That business started out of the indio office, so that was a lot of fun. So there’s just a lot of, I think, shared experiences when you’re going through the process of starting a company. And as I’ve mentioned a number of times, I think this is true for investors as well. Sometimes the thing that you need more than anything is just like a pat on the back and to share support. And that’s what I try to do as an advisor or as an investor or for my friends who are in that position. 

Matt Watson
And I think that I have that ability to give that and also receive it with someone who has started a business, obviously my wife, in the same household. And then I’ve also had the opportunity to learn. I’m much more nuts and bolts oriented than she is in a lot of ways. She is very strong on the empathetic, more emotional leadership side, and it’s been amazing to me to see how that superpower for her has unlocked so much. Her business has grown to amazing heights, and I think it’s in large part due to her ability to really connect with the team and understand her client really closely. And so in many ways, I’ve just learned a ton from her along the way. 

Brett
Do you have any funny rules in place? Like you can’t talk about either of your companies after 08:00 p.m. Or on weekends, anything like that? 

Matt Watson
We’ve tried that so many times, it’s impossible. You can’t get away from it, right? It’s like it’s your life, your work, it becomes your life. And sometimes it’s a really good thing because it’s incredibly exciting and motivating to share that. And then sometimes it’s too much. You got to kind of step away from the computer and say, hey, 24 hours, I’m not going to look at my email. We’ve tried to say, all right, what’s our plan? But fruitless endeavor. 

Brett
Yeah, it sounds nice on paper. Right? 

Matt Watson
Exactly. 

Brett
Let’s dive a bit deeper into the company now. So how we like to start this is, let’s talk about the problem. So I, it was pretty clear from the early part of the discussion, the problem. But maybe if we just dive a little bit deeper into that. How do you summarize the problem that you solve? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, so like I said, I started my career working on Wall street, and when you’re in a building like that and you look at what the company does, they offer pretty much any sort of financial advice and guidance that you can imagine. And the question that I ask myself is, what would it look like? Or how would I bring that same level of professional money management to employees everywhere? And so that is what we aspire to do, is to bring really great guidance and execution to people who traditionally would be excluded from high end wealth management. And so we talk to our clients, we say, look, we want to give your manufacturing employees, your everyday workers and employees the same level of advice that your CDO would get. 

Matt Watson
And obviously there’s different circumstances there, but ultimately what that means is delivering a strategy and a way to execute that strategy that makes people feel good about money. And money is a really complicated topic. We were just putting some materials together and the average employee would rather talk about politics, infertility and sex more than money. That’s how much people hate talking about the stuff. And if we can do our part to make that easier and help them feel successful, we’ve done a great job. 

Brett
And then who are you selling to then? Is that selling into HR or who’s actually buying the platform? 

Matt Watson
Yes. HR has a number of different roles, right? They’ve got recruiting, they have learning and development. We’re working with the benefits group inside of know more broadly, the total rewards department inside of the group. So that’s where, when we sell a product direct, that’s who we go to. And then we also work with third parties. So benefit brokers are a big part of our distribution channel. Insurance carriers are as well, increasingly 401k record keepers. So really looking at the full gamut of folks who are interacting with the finances that an employee would face through the workplace. 

Brett
And then what’s the split in terms of the customer base that you have today? What percentage comes from those partners and what percentage comes direct? 

Matt Watson
It’s a good question. It depends on how we think about attribution. The number of users is much higher on the partnership side, probably 80 20, but the revenue split is roughly equal. 

Brett
And then on the brand side, or the company side that you’re selling into. At what stage do you even have a benefits department? I’m guessing that’s big enterprise if you’d have a specialized benefits team. 

Matt Watson
People start to pick their head up on this stuff, probably around 100 people at that point. You’ve probably got one person who’s thinking about the experience of working at this company. What does it mean to work at company x? How do we want to appear for them? How do we want to support these folks? There’s a separate question, which is that a profitable client for our business? But I’d say around 100 is when benefits start to be a part of the equation, because that’s when you start to shift outside of we’re a pirate ship startup into we’re now recruiting people who might not be looking at us as the pirate ship, and they want a stable place where they can come and earn a steady paycheck. And now we’re competing against much larger organizations who are going to offer a fuller suite of services. 

Matt Watson
Our sweet spot is quite a bit larger than that. Call it 1000 to 3000 is where there’s fully blown teams and strategies looking at these problems. 

Brett
And then from a sales perspective, looking through your website, I see a lot of stuff that’s coming from the employees perspective. There’s a lot of content targeting employees. Is the general strategy there to get the employees to go and ask their bosses or ask their employers and say, hey, why don’t we have this? Is that the general approach? 

Matt Watson
We have not done kind of direct to employee marketing to date, but our go to market motion is we talk to the employer about this, they contract with us, and then the next thing is like, how do you get people to use this? Right? So how do you get that awareness out? And so there’s pretty robust strategies to drive awareness, but one thing is the company announces the benefit and then an employee will go to the website and say, well, what is this thing? And so we need to talk to that employee to get them excited about ultimately working with us and ultimately managing their money through our platform. So we want to appear to be that very desirable destination for them when they’ve been made aware that this is something they have access to. 

Brett
And are you seeing that most teams are aware that this is a benefit that they can even offer? I guess when I think of benefits, initially it’s healthcare, dental, Vision 401, but this sounds like it’s entirely new category of benefit. Is that fair to say? 

Matt Watson
In many ways, yes, it is. And I think that there’s been, I’d say, over the last five to ten years, there’s been a significant development of multibillion dollar industries around that next level of benefits that are meant to make a company very competitive with respect to recruiting and retention. So you’re seeing that in mental health, fertility, childcare, financial wellness is huge. These are the main thing. And if you think about it from an ROI perspective, if you hire people, you want them to be able to focus at work and be productive. If they’re spending hours a week thinking about their money, their childcare, maybe they’re just depressed. Well, you’ve hired someone who’s not going to be super effective for you. And so I think they’re predicting the Fortune 500, but really the Fortune 1000. 

Matt Watson
And sort of being the technology industry, there’s been a recognition from, I would say, leadership across the C suite that if they take care of the employee, they’re going to get people to stay a lot longer. When you look at the cost of replacing that employee, it’s massive. And then they’re going to be able to recruit better people as well. So it’s definitely a new construct. I would say it’s developing. It’s probably a five to ten year movement. But really these benefits are focused on how do we help people just live better lives. And as I started off the call, the vast majority of people indicate that money is their number one driver of stress. And when you’re stressed, you’re twice as likely to be depressed. 

Matt Watson
You’re more likely to leave the company for really small increases in comp, you’re less productive in the workplace, and that’s really where this industry has been born. 

Brett
When it comes to the market category, then how do you think about it? Are you a financial advisor? Is it a financial wellness platform? What’s that actual market category? 

Matt Watson
When we talk to employers, we’re financial wellness platform. So that’s where we sit and market, and that’s how we sell. Now, when we work with employees, there’s different components of what we do. We want people to budget with us, file taxes with us, invest with us, create a will, create an estate plan. So we really want to be their entire destination for all things money management. So to them, we’re really their wealth advisor, and they’re getting it at an amazing deal through their employer. 

Brett
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Brett
So is there like a sweet spot for you on how much salary the workers need to be earning for this to make sense? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, absolutely. It starts at a very low level. Even if you’re making 35, $40,000 a year, it’s really prudent for you to budget, understand your credit score, understand the debts that you have, and if there’s better options for you to pay those down all the way up into 100k range, maybe you’re starting to invest for the first time. Maybe you’re starting to family plan. You want to buy a home, have a child. Up until roughly 200, $250,000, we can be incredibly effective for you at a very small fraction of what you would pay to go and procure these tools from a traditional wealth advisor. Now, how is it possible? It’s possible because we build a very robust piece of software that is effectively the combination of Mint.com, wealthfront, turbotax, increasingly, estate planning in one central destination. 

Matt Watson
So we’re able to help folks do all these things without having to bring in a human, necessarily, to create an amazing financial plan and allow the employee to actually execute that financial plan. And so when you can do that, you open up the market from someone who, let’s take the traditional model, let’s say they have $200,000, and you’re going to charge them 1% of their assets. That’s like a typical fee. That means the business generating $2,000 of revenue. So they can put a financial planner against that at $150 an hour for 6 hours, and they’ll run that business at 50% margin. Now, obviously, if someone has $10,000, that doesn’t make sense. So they have $10,000, they might only make $100. So they can’t put a human against that problem. 

Matt Watson
And that’s what the technology has allowed us to unlock at very low income levels when you build these digital experiences, to create that same financial planning product, you can now go after millions of households that previously were eliminated from traditional wealth management or financial planning services. 

Brett
I admire that. Nowhere on your website, at least, that I can see the word democratization is used. I feel like that’s like the buzword that everyone would use to describe what you’re talking about, because that’s kind of what it is. 

Matt Watson
Right. 

Brett
You’re taking the services that were normally reserved for people who had a lot more money, and you’re bringing people who don’t have as much money. Is that a fair way to summarize it or think about it? 

Matt Watson
That’s exactly right. Yeah. And so we like to say we’re reimagining. Yeah, I think that’s the new democratizing. Democratizing. It got beaten into a pulp, so, yeah, that’s exactly right, though. We’re taking these services, we’re leveraging technology to make them much more accessible to people and bringing the price point down to something that is fantastic and exciting for folks. 

Brett
Take us back to the first couple of big enterprise accounts that you landed. How’d you pull that off? Because, like, you were talking about, people don’t like to talk about money. It’s a sensitive topic. And I’m sure employers also don’t know how to really insert themselves into that conversation with their workers. So how did you convince those first big enterprise accounts to really just give you a shot? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, I was actually talking to a friend last night on the phone. He’s starting a business, and he was just running into Stonewall with his early sales conversations. And I was like, that’s actually what you should expect when you first bring this to market and talk to people. You’re going to have a lot of non believers in what you’re doing, but you have to have conviction in the destination. Like, where do we want to go? If I can get there, I’m confident that many people will buy this, but I know today that the product is not there. I don’t have the sock two certification. I don’t have the look and feel of the software that people might expect. 

Matt Watson
But your job is to really find a couple of those true believers who can work with you so that you can ultimately build a team and build a product that get you to that destination. And so for us, I think that there was a lot of conviction on our end, that wealth management, money management, it starts with your paycheck. It starts with your benefit. It starts with the equity you’re receiving at work. There should be a service there that employers are providing to help employees actually make the most of what they’re earning. And so that was conviction that I think we just held very deeply. And it just takes a lot of conversations to talk to early folks to see, is this a problem for your workforce? Do you believe this to be a problem? 

Matt Watson
And then you’re going to get a couple of yeses, and then obviously you don’t have great technology at that point, but you fight tooth and nail to provide an amazing service. Most of it’s manual, but if you can still provide that great service, that’s where the flywheel really starts. And then. 

Brett
Great. 

Matt Watson
Now I’ve got two or three really happy customers. Would any of your colleagues be open to hearing about your experience with us? And of course they would if you delivered a great experience. And that’s really where you start to get that traction. And as you get that traction, you’re able to raise money and improve the product. And then the addressable market of people, as that product expands and the price point comes down and it looks and it feels better, is going to get much bigger. So I think that if you don’t have conviction in that end result of if we did all of these things, would everyone want this? If you’re not 100% convicted in that? It’s really tough to work through the muck of the no’s initially. So that’s how I’ve always thought about it. 

Brett
How long did it take you to start seeing initial traction, to say, okay, there’s for sure something here. Was that like three months, six months, twelve months, three years? How long did that take to start to feel really confident about what you’re building? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, we cycle through a bunch of ideas. So I think you have to have kind of this ability to filter feedback has to be really strong where you’re not lying to yourself. There’s some things when you’re talking to people and they’re just like, no, this just wouldn’t work for us at any price point in any world. And so you have to be honest with that. But I think if you start to get some yeses, and then it’s a yes, but, okay, well, what’s the but? Is that something that we can overcome? Is it a pricing objection? Is it a feature that needs to be built? When you start to see some of that’s where I personally start to get excited, because now we can have conversations, we’ve identified a problem. People agree on this problem. 

Matt Watson
Maybe they don’t agree on how it should be solved, but if you can get that alignment. That’s where I think that for myself, that’s where I start to get excited on something that we’re going to spend a lot of time and resources and building. 

Brett
When I go on your website today, the messaging is super crisp, super clear, and I can walk away understanding what it is that you do. A lot of websites I visit, I walk away just wondering, what the hell does this company do? But with you, it’s very clear. Has your messaging always been this on point and this clear? Or what was the journey like to get to this point? 

Matt Watson
I think it’s a really good question. It’s something I talk with my marketing team about a lot. I think it simplicity is absolutely critical in terms of explaining what you do. If it takes people more than two sentences to explain either the problem or the solution, they haven’t distilled it down enough for a buyer, in my opinion. I would say that our goal to make money simple for employees has always been the same. That has been from day one of building this business. That’s who we’ve wanted to be. I think what’s changed are the features that enable that vision and mission and then of course, the different go to market channels, whether it’s direct or through partners or whatever. So to answer your question directly, I think our mission as a company has been unchanged. 

Matt Watson
And I’m a big believer in like, I want people to land on the website and understand instantly what this business does. I think that’s really important given how short people’s attention spans are. And we should feel so fortunate that someone even went to our website. They certainly want them to leave understanding what we do. 

Brett
What about traction and adoption in the market? Are there any numbers that you can share that just highlight some of the growth that you’re seeing today? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, we’re hundreds of thousands of users. We’re growing multiples every year at this point since we’ve started the company. So we’re really pleased with the trajectory of the business right now. I think we’ve unlocked some really significant distribution, which is really important and the way that we look at the business from a nuts and bolts perspective. So moving away from the customer side and really thinking about the fundamentals of the company, you can start a very similar business and go direct to consumer. I think that what we’ve seen is that the cost to acquire customers is just very high in a direct to consumer environment. So by working with employers and bringing that employer lens to it, we’re getting zero to negative customer acquisition cost with a product where consumer spend is many billions of dollars. 

Matt Watson
So we’re really pleased that some of the early hypotheses that we’ve had around the business model have been validated. And now we’ll just continue to listen to our customers and try to build experiences that delight them. And ultimately, the vision is for us to become the next Charles Schwab, where everyday individuals can come and know that they’re going to get the best financial advice and that they can actually do it with us as well. 

Brett
From a marketing perspective, what are you doing to rise above all the noise? Just on the show alone, I’ve talked to probably ten or 15 different companies that are not tackling this specific benefit, but trying to create demand for a new benefit. And I think there’s just a lot of noise, there’s a lot of buzz around this and a lot of different vendors selling into it. So what are you doing from a marketing perspective, to rise above all that noise? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, I think in the benefits basic, your reputation is shared very quickly. It’s like somewhat of a tight community. And so what I always think about is just the customer. We just want to be the best at delivering great value to our customer. If we can do that, things will fall into place and the go to market really loosens up. I think in the early days when the product is not there, you have to compensate for that with just exceptional service. Maybe that prevents you from scaling a little bit, but I think a lesson that I’ve learned throughout my career is it’s probably better to go a little bit slower and really nail that experience that will enable you to grow much more quickly down the road. 

Matt Watson
And I also think that really serves to supercharge your marketing channels when you have a good reputation and you’re really proud of the product that you put in front of your clients. I think in a vertical SaaS company, so like my first business and or an industry that is somewhat vertical in nature, I guess our buyers are in very tight knit communities. That reputational component is really critical and that will really help the marketing messaging. 

Brett
As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised over 70 million to date. What have you learned about fundraising throughout this journey? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, I mean, the fundraising market as we’ve navigated it at this company has been both euphoric at times and also dismal at times. And I think as a Founder, you really need to understand where your business is with respect to the current environment that you may need to raise capital into. So you want to be obviously opportunistic and maximize value for your shareholders. You also may have to change the way you operate the business depending on what that environment is. So today, if you’re in the market to raise money, I think it’s loosened up a little bit from where it was a few months ago, but it’s certainly nowhere near what it was, 2020, 2021, which I think was beyond euphoric. But even going back to 20 15, 20 16, 20 17, I think we’re south of there right now. 

Matt Watson
I wouldn’t say we’re in like a normal environment. So I think you’ve got to know the field that you’re playing on and what sport you’re playing, so you can’t show up to a hoops game with a soccer ball. You have to understand who you’re talking to, what their state of mind is, what their interest investing right now may be, and in what terms they’re likely to be offering. And if that doesn’t align, it’s going to be really hard to fundraise. So I think it’s just about being brutally honest with yourself where your business is, what the environment looks like, and then making sure that you capitalize on the opportunity when it exists. 

Matt Watson
And when the opportunity doesn’t exist, you’re going to have to change your sales and adjust the company in the direction and make sure that you’re able to put the company in a position to fundraise when you need to. 

Brett
I’m happy to hear you say that. It seems like it’s turning around a little bit, and that’s consistent with a lot of the conversations I’ve been having with founders just in our company and on the podcast as well. Everyone has been saying it seems like things are getting better. Like twelve months ago when were doing these interviews, or even six months ago, there were some hard conversations with founders and they were just talking about what a brutal environment it is. So glad to hear just another data point here, that things are looking a little bit better. 

Matt Watson
Yeah, totally. But I say that, and I think that the lesson that I have learned is you want to build a resilient business. So, like antifragility, this has been the year to build that into your company. So if you’re in a business where spend has retracted, well, this has been the year to really say, what would this business look like if we had to operate in an environment where spend was that okay, well, where is other spend that we can move to, and how do we develop a business model around that? And I think that investors are really excited to see those types of changes. So I think even in a downturn, there’s an opportunity to make a business more resilient. And I think that’s what really good founders are thinking about right now. 

Brett
What were some of those wartime measures that you put in place or ways to make the business more resilient? Can you share any examples of specific things that you did? 

Matt Watson
Yeah, 100%. I mean, for us, we extract the vast majority of revenue through the employer. And when the market turned, it was like, okay, that may not grow as. 

Brett
Quickly as we needed to. 

Matt Watson
So what does this business look like in an environment where benefits spend is maybe not as aggressive as it was twelve months ago. And so we very quickly decided that’s okay. We actually don’t care if we can go and build tremendous services. So the ability to invest, the ability to file taxes, the ability to create a will or a trust, then we’re okay, because we have tremendous distribution. And if we do a really good job for individuals, they’re going to want to do those things with us. And so that was really a function of our mission and our vision is unchanged. We want to be the preeminent destination for money management for mass market and mass affluent. How we extract revenue can change, and that’s great. 

Matt Watson
And so we’ve put a lot of work into that, and that’s shown, like, tremendous result that probably wouldn’t have happened if the market didn’t change. We would just kept chugging along. And so when I think about that, I’m actually really excited because we have injected this antifragility into our business model where I actually don’t really care if the market comes back or it doesn’t. People still spend billions of dollars every year on core financial services. They’re mandatory services. So where we extract that revenue is not particularly important. We know that it’s going to come because we’ve gone through the journey of improving our business model. So that’s probably the biggest example that we’ve experienced directly at Origin. 

Brett
Let’s imagine that you were starting the company again today from scratch. Based on everything that you’ve learned throughout this journey, what would be the number one piece of advice that you’d give to yourself? 

Matt Watson
Just like 100% focus on the right people. Getting the right people on board is undoubtedly the single highest leverage thing that you can do when you’re starting a business. Coming back to the Shackleton thing, I’m sure that you have heard about his famous job posting for his Antarctica trip was men wanted for hazardous journey, low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness, safe return, doubtful honor and recognition in the event of success. That’s like the greatest thing of all time. That is what a startup is. It’s going to be exciting. It’s going to be very difficult. And I think getting the people on board who not only are not intimidated by that, but are looking for that at this point of their career, at this point of their life is really important. Obviously, having the requisite skill set is important as well. 

Matt Watson
But I think that is something that maybe was a little bit lost in the last run up where you had a lot of people who didn’t necessarily sign up for that type of a role. And now I think that my learning through ten years of doing this now is that’s number one. You got to get the right people on the boat. When you do that, magic happens. And look, there’s going to be twists and turns, there’s going to be pivots, there’s going to be upset clients, there’s going to be people who don’t work out. But if you have the right people on board, it all is just so much easier. 

Brett
Final question for you here. Let’s zoom out into the future. And I know you’ve touched on the vision there a little bit, but let’s go a bit more detailed. What’s that big picture vision that you’re hoping to know? Paint a picture for us for what the company is going to look like in like three to five years from today. 

Matt Watson
You’re managing your money at Origin. Brett Staffer’s managing his money with us like everyone is managing money with us because we deliver an easier experience that costs a lot less and consolidates all of your financial needs into one experience. So I think a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. I don’t want people to think about it. I want them to come to us and it’s just done and it’s easy and it’s at a price that cannot beaten. And I think we’re doing a really nice job getting that out into the world. 

Brett
Amazing. Love the vision and love the approach that you’re taking. We are up on time, so we’ll have to wrap here before we do, if there’s any founders listening in that just want to follow along with your journey as you build and execute on this vision. Where should they go? 

Matt Watson
They should go to our website. We have a ton of big stuff coming out through the back half of this year. They can always email me as well. Matt@useororgin.com love talking to other folks about this stuff. 

Brett
Awesome. Matt, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it and really enjoyed this conversation. 

Matt Watson
Likewise. Thank you. 

Brett
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